Mr To Chung, an investment banker with degrees from Columbia and Harvard, gave up his nice pay cheque and business class travels at 32 to help children in China orphaned or affected by HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes aids.
Over the last two decades, Mr To founded a non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Chi Heng Foundation (CHF). This foundation has sponsored the education of 20,000 children with HIV and more than 3,000 made it to university.
Now, Mr To, 50, plans to set up a local office in Singapore for Chi Heng, the charity which has 13 offices in Hong Kong and China, also fights discrimination against people with HIV and funds initiatives in aids prevention and care.
CHF is focused primarily on education and prevention, working with brothels to distribute condoms and promote safe sex. It also set up hotlines and websites to provide information and counselling services.
Three years after he set up CHF, he met a father and son in Beijing who said that they contracted HIV because they sold blood. The duo were among thousands of victims of the “plasma economy”, rampant in China in the 1990s.
Fuelled by demand from biotech companies, it attracted millions, mostly poor farmers and villagers to sell blood for money. Because of unsanitary practices and poor safety standards pertaining to the use of needles and blood bags, there was a surge in HIV infections that led to the disease gaining a firm foothold in the country.
One of this strategies which CHF adopts is to work with local school systems to place these children so as to provide a more integrated approach rather than isolation. There are also counselling services and psycho-social initiatives to help these children come to terms with their traumatic past.
Over the years, major agencies, including the Global Fung, the Clinton Foundation and Hong Kong’s Home Affairs Bureau, have come on board to support its initiatives. So have corporations like Cartier and fashion label MCM in Hong Kong.
The accolades he was won are many such as 10 Most inspiring persons and 2004 (Hong Kong Government department of health.
Mr To believes that HIV is a social issue with a lot of discrimination, and so believes that society requires more education. He continues to work on the front lines to understand their changing needs so as to produce more effective programmes to help them.
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Source: The Straits Times, 4 June 2017